U.S. Bancorp will wait until later this fall to have corporate employees return to the office, citing a resurgence in the coronavirus for delaying its initial plan to end much remote work after Labor Day.
The decision will reverberate on other businesses in downtown Minneapolis, where the company is the fifth-largest employer with nearly 5,000 workers at its corporate headquarters.
"There are increased caseloads across the globe, and the Delta variant has caused us to adjust our plans," Andy Cecere, the company's CEO, wrote in an e-mail to employees that was obtained by the Star Tribune.
"After weighing our options, we believe the right course of action is to postpone our broader return to office until sometime in the fourth quarter," he added.
The company does not have a new date yet, but Cecere said executives will continue to monitor the situation and will give employees 30 days' notice before they need to return.
"Our goal in moving the date out is to provide more time for people to get vaccinated, allow needed flexibility for parents and caregivers to navigate back-to-school challenges, and give us additional time to buy and configure the necessary technology to support hybrid work," he said.
Other companies around the U.S., such as Apple and Google, have also pushed back plans to return to the office amid the recent rise in coronavirus cases.
In May, U.S. Bancorp had told employees it would notify them whether their positions going forward would be onsite, remote or hybrid. Most corporate positions were expected to be hybrid, meaning that those employees would be expected to be in the office three days a week.
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